"David loved another man's wife. Mind you, I don't accuse Lucy of loving any body, but when the needle has once touched the magnet it answers to its call ever after."Miss Vance vouchsafed no answer. She walked away across the Platz, jerking her bonnet strings into a knot. Jean was one of the New Women! Her opinions stuck out on every side like Briareus' hundred elbows! You could not come near her without being jabbed by them. Such women were all opinions; there was no softness, no feeling, no delicacy about them. Skeletons with no flesh! As for Lucy, she had no fear. If even the child had loved George, she would have cast out every thought of him on his wedding day, as a Christian girl should do!
She passed Lucy at that moment. She was leaning against one of the huge stone lions which crouch in front of the church, listening to Mr. Perry. If ever a pure soul looked into the world it was through those limpid eyes!
The Platz was nearly empty. One or two men in blouses clattered across the cobblestones and going into the dark church dropped on their knees. The wind was high, and now and then swept heavy clouds low across the sunlight space overhead.
Lucy, as Jean had guessed, knew why the man beside her had crossed the Atlantic, and she had decided last night to end the matter at once. The tears had stood in her eyes for pity at the thought of the pain she must give him. Yet she had put on her new close-fitting coat and a becoming fur cap, and pulled out the loose hair which she knew at this moment was blowing about her pink cheeks in curly wisps in a way that was perfectly maddening.
Clara, seeing the mischief in her eyes as she listened shyly to Perry, went on satisfied. There was no abyss of black loss in that girl's life!
Lucy just now was concerned only for Perry. How the poor man loved her! Why not marry him after all, and put him out of his pain? She was twenty-four. Most women at twenty-four had gone through their little tragedy of love. But she had had no tragedy. She told herself firmly that there had been no story of love in her life.
There never could be, now. She was too old.
She was tired, too, and very lonely. This man would seat her on a throne and worship her every day. That would be pleasant enough.
"I am ashamed of myself," he was saying, "to pursue you in this way. You have given me no encouragement, I know.
But whenever I go to New York and bone down to work, something tells me to come back and try again."Lucy did not answer, and there was a brief silence.
"Of course I'm a fool,"--prodding the ground with his stick. "But if a man were in a jail cell and knew that the sun was shining just outside, he'd keep on beating at the wall.""Your life is not a jail cell. It's very comfortable, Ithink."
"It has been bare enough. I have had a hard fight to live at all. I told you that I began as a canal-boy."She looked at him with quick sympathy. At once she fancied that she could read old marks of want on his face. His knuckles were knobbed like a laborer's. He had had a hard fight! It certainly would be pleasant to rain down comfort and luxury on the good, plucky fellow!
"Of course that was all long ago," said Perry. "I'm not ashamed of it. As Judge Baker remarked the other day, `The acknowledged aristocrats of America, to-day, are its self-made men.' He ought to know. The Bakers are the top of the heap in New York. Very exclusive. I've been intimate there for years. No, Miss Dunbar, I may have begun as a mule-driver on a canal, but I am choice in my society. My wife will not find a man or woman in my circle who is half-cut."Lucy drew a long breath. To live all day and every day with this man!
And yet--she was so tired! There was a good deal of money to manage, and he could do that. He would like a gay, hospitable house, and so would she, and they would be kind to the poor--and he was an Episcopalian, too.
There would be no hitch there. Lucy was a zealous High Churchwoman.
Why should she not do it? The man was as good as gold at heart. Jean called him a cad, but the caddishness was only skin deep.
Mr. Perry watched her, reading her thoughts more keenly than she guessed.
"One thing I will say in justice to myself," he said.
"You are a rich woman. If you marry me, YOU will know, if nobody else does, that I am no fortune-hunter. Ishall always be independent of my wife. Every dollar she owns shall be settled on her before I go with her to the altar.""Oh, I'm not thinking of the money," said Lucy impatiently.
"Then you are thinking of me!" He leaned over her. She felt as if she had been suddenly dragged too close to a big unpleasant fire. "I know you don't love me," he panted, "you cold little angel, you! But you do like me?
Eh? just a little bit, Lucy? Marry me. Give me a chance. I'll bring you to me. If there is a single spark of love in your heart for me, I'll blow it into a flame! I can do it, I tell you!" He caught her fiercely by the shoulder.
Lucy drew back and threw out her hands. "Let me have time to think!""Time? You've had a year!"
"One more day. Come again this evening----"
"This evening? I've come so often!" staring breathlessly into her face. "It will be no use, I can see that.
Well, as you please. I'll come once more."
The young fellow in his jaunty new clothes shook as if he had the ague. He had touched her. For one minute she had been his!
He turned and walked quickly across the Platz.
